First Aid in Law Enforcement
Lt . J . D . Griffin
As first responders , police officers have always needed basic first aid training . While emergency medical services ( EMS ) personnel provide the bulk of medical treatment in the field , officers regularly find they are the first to arrive at a scene where quick action is required to save someone ’ s life . The Gwinnett County Police Department ( GCPD ) recognized there were some relatively basic things officers could do to keep patients alive until better trained and equipped personnel could arrive . The different types of first aid mentioned in this article have been incorporated into the program over several years . This program continues to evolve as new techniques and equipment are developed . In addition to basic first aid , GCPD officers regularly utilize tourniquets , chest seals , automated external defibrillators , and naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray .
Tourniquets Once a scene is secured , the priority transitions to treating the injured . With shooting and stabbing victims , it is critical to stop the bleeding . When someone has a traumatic injury to an arm or leg , the bleeding can be stopped relatively easily with a tourniquet . The use of tourniquets has been recorded as far back as the battle of Flanders in 1674 .
GCPD initially introduced the use of commercially produced tourniquets with the SWAT team in 2003 as a way to bring tactical medicine to downed officers when access to traditional emergency medical personnel was not available . Starting in 2011 , every officer in the department was trained how to make an improvised tourniquet using their uniform shirt , or pants , and their expandable baton . In 2014 , commercially manufactured tourniquets were issued to officers throughout the department . Since then , GCPD has had 75 confirmed uses of tourniquets . The majority of these tourniquets were applied to shooting victims ( 55 ). Other uses include nine stabbing victims as well as persons in automobile accidents , bitten by stray dogs , and one subject who was bitten by a police K9 . It is hard to determine exactly how many of these applications resulted in saving someone ’ s life , but one of the great benefits to the tourniquet is that there is very little in the way of risk regarding its use . Since tourniquets have been introduced , the agency has never received a complaint or legal claim regarding the application of a tourniquet .
32 FALL . 2020